how to spot a fake

how is everyone around you able to grow their socials so quickly?

you’re doing everything right:

posting consistently, doing everything right, and still it feels slow. then you scroll for five minutes and suddenly it feels like you’re falling behind.

but here’s the question most people avoid asking: how much of that growth is actually real?

because the more you pay attention, the more things don’t quite add up.

and often you’re comparing yourself to people cheating the system via two ways:

• bought growth
• engagement groups

what bought growth actually looks like

bought growth usually looks impressive from a distance but when you actually sit down and analyse it, it becomes quite clear.

it commonly looks like this:

you see a large follower account but then, as you begin to look at their posts, you notice something’s off with the reach and impressions; they don’t quite add up.

100,000 followers but only a couple hundred impressions, only 3-4 likes per post and one comment?

dodgy as fuck.

even if they do have a bunch of engagement (comments/likes), when you check them you see that they’re empty comments and from dodgy-looking accounts like tinpotpotato321252 saying “agree!” or some bullshit like that. and i bet if you opened their dm’s it would be an absolute graveyard too.

once you start paying attention to these, it becomes glaringly obvious to spot. it’s like a ‘glass shattering theory’ moment (for those who’ve watched how i met your mother).

what engagement groups actually look like

engagement groups are sneaky bastards.

they’re easier to miss at first because everything looks legit on the surface but when you really look deeper, you start to pick up on things that aren’t quite right.

so that growing account with less than 5,000 followers that has unusually high engagement might not be so legit.

check again, look at their posts though.

you’ll start to notice that they probably have a similar number of comments, likes and even (sometimes) impressions. but the best time to spot this is when they first post, you’ll notice that they’ll often end up with an overweighted balance of comments and likes to their impression count.

now look closer at those comments and note down who’s commenting on their posts, bet you start to see the same faces over and over who comment; particularly when they first post and within the first 1-2hrs.

a quick caveat

now, not everything that grows fast is fake, of course and it can’t be proved 100%.

but if an account shows any of the above, chances are they’re buying bots, using engagement groups or a mixture of both.

what real growth actually looks like

real growth is uneven and a lot less dramatic than people expect.

some posts flop completely, while others will suddenly pop off more than you thought they would with different people showing up over time.

in essence, real growth is non-linear and never looks the same from day to day and post to post.

once you recognize that pattern, it becomes much easier to stop taking slow weeks personally.

and that’s where most people lose focus. not because they don’t know what to do, but because they stop trusting the process.

how to stay focused on your own growth

pick a lane early (and stay in it)

at the beginning, narrow your focus as much as possible.

pick a niche (but make sure it’s a focus/niche with an actual audience) and stay there long enough for people to understand what you’re about and what you stand for because switching directions too often resets that momentum youve just built every time and confuses your audience more than it helps.

be social, not just visible

treat social media like the word implies: social.

talk to people (scary, i know), reply with some effort and be organic about what you write and how you write it, ask questions, and spend time in the same places as the people you want to reach.

growth rarely comes from posting alone.

stop expecting it to feel fast

most accounts that ‘go the distance’ grow slower than people expect, and the sooner you stop chasing fast growth and start building focusing on what i said in the previous points above and do it consistenly, the ‘faster’ you’ll actually start to grow but don’t expect viral levels of growth so soon.

focus on what needs to be done daily, rather than the end goal here.

build a daily standard (not bursts of motivation)

show up daily with something simple, repeatable and, most of all, valuable.

some days that means posting, other days it means engaging more, learning something new, or refining stuff you’ve already talked about to bring a new perspective on it.

but consistency always matters more than intensity.

post with intent, not for numbers

the posts that compound usually come from a clear point of view, not from you trying to guess what might perform well.

and when you focus too much on vanity metrics your content drifts away from what made people follow you in the first place.

clarity beats cleverness every time

most strong posts are straightforward, easy to follow, easy to remember, and clear.

this kind of writing will outperform trying to sound smart more often than people expect.

expect quiet periods (and keep going anyway)

there will be weeks where there’s radio silence and doubt creeps in.

but that usually means you’re in the middle of the process, not that you’ve suddenly lost your touch and are failing, especially when markets turn red.

but also sometimes it could mean you’ve lost track of what worked well so be sure to always assess it first.

measure what matters and adjust

following on from the point above:

pay attention to what actually drives saves, shares, replies, and profile visits.

double down on what works, cut what doesn’t, and refine instead of restarting from scratch.

speak how your audience actually speaks

if your content doesn’t sound like how your audience thinks or talks, it becomes harder for them to connect with you, no matter how great the idea is.

learn the algorithm, don’t obey it

understand how it works, use it as context and a guide, but don’t let it dictate how you create your content.

remember what real growth feels like

real growth is slower than it looks from the outside, but far more stable once you start to gain traction and it starts to compound.

if you stay focused on the daily work instead of the daily numbers, you’ll be further ahead than you think.